# Chapter 99
It was a few days after Levi’s rampage incident in the Delos Empire.
Hest, who had been staying at the marquis’s residence with a mind as troubled as Ion’s, received an unexpected visitor.
Tap tap—
Late at night, the small sound of someone tapping on the glass window awakened Hest, who had not yet fallen asleep.
Outside the window, a pitch-black raven was standing boldly on the windowsill. The tapping from earlier must have been a knock using its hard beak.
The uniform knocking, the gaze directed at the inside beyond the window rather than outside, and the nerve to neither turn away nor try to escape when someone approached—Hest opened the window, certain that this raven must have been trained by a human.
As expected, a small note was tied to the raven’s ankle.
[It’s time to repay the debt you owe to Levi.]
The elegant handwriting he had never seen before was impossible to ignore.
The mere mention of Levi’s name was surprising enough, but the part about “repaying the debt” made his skin crawl.
Without giving it a second thought, Hest rushed out of his bedroom. Brushing past the startled servants and soldiers, he rode his horse to the location written at the bottom of the note, following the request to “come alone within 30 minutes.”
Entering a secluded forest path where few people passed even during the day, Hest surveyed his surroundings with the help of a small lantern he had brought along.
Behind the tenth tree on the right side of the forest path.
He discovered a man in a black robe that seemed to have melted into the deep night itself.
Hest approached the man threateningly as soon as he dismounted, as if he had no intention of exchanging pleasantries.
“Who are you?”
The other party did not seem to be intimidated by Hest’s menacing demeanor. After summoning him here, instead of speaking, he was calmly observing Hest’s face and eyes in the lantern light.
Hest stopped at a distance where he could grab the man’s collar if he just extended his arm, and raised the lantern abruptly. Thanks to this, he could see that the hooded man had quite a handsome nose and mouth, and black hair.
‘Black hair?’
Levi came to mind momentarily, but the probability of them being the same person was zero. Given the situation, this man’s height and build were larger than Levi’s. Above all, no matter how Levi might have changed, it was impossible that Hest wouldn’t recognize him.
Hest’s eyes narrowed sharply as he asked with a heavy murderous intent.
“The note, did you send it?”
A debt owed to Levi.
Only he, Ion, and the Levi from his childhood days who had shared his early years would know about that.
Ion would never go around spreading his affairs, and Levi, whom he hadn’t been able to meet since this latest regeneration, wouldn’t remember him. According to Ion’s reaction and words, Levi had once again lost his memories right before regeneration.
So how could the man before him leave such a message?
As if he knew everything about the great debt Hest owed to Levi.
“How much do you know about Levi? Don’t tell me…”
Hest’s hand firmly gripped the man’s collar.
“You’re the one who kidnapped Levi?!”
Ion had said that Levi was taken by a “man with black hair.” While that might be unremarkable in the Caron Empire, black hair was clearly difficult to find in the Delos Empire, so the possibility that they were the same person was quite high.
Instead of objecting, the man grabbed Hest’s wrist with his left hand, the one that was gripping his collar.
Just as Hest tensed, feeling the considerable strength in that grip.
He realized that the man’s left hand was completely different from that of a normal human.
At first, he thought the man was wearing black gloves.
But when the lantern light he was holding to see the man’s face clearly revealed the shape of his left hand, he realized it was definitely not a glove.
The man’s left hand was a “black hand,” just like Levi’s.
With a face of great surprise, Hest released the collar and instead grabbed the man’s left hand. Though the man had seemed to have considerable grip strength, he relaxed his hand as if to allow Hest to examine it fully, and willingly showed his palm.
Sure enough, there was the same red pattern that was on Levi’s palm. A very distinct pattern that looked as if it would bleed if touched even slightly.
“This… how…”
It was unbelievable.
The man in front of him was clearly not Levi. But having seen and touched Levi’s black hand numerous times, Hest couldn’t deny the fact that this man had the same hand.
As that thought struck him, Hest released the man’s hand as if throwing it away and immediately retreated nearly two steps. He was still looking back and forth between his own hand and the man’s black hand, as if he couldn’t believe it.
‘The same, yet different.’
It was true that the man had the same hand as Levi, but their abilities weren’t identical. If their abilities had been the same, Hest would have stopped breathing the moment the man’s hand gripped his wrist.
“Marquis Hest Wesslon.”
The man finally spoke to Hest, who was struggling to assess the situation.
“Since it’s a life Levi saved, shouldn’t you use it for his sake?”
“Why should I listen to such words from a fake like you?”
Hest deliberately smirked, still trying to gauge the man’s identity.
“I don’t know what you’re up to, but you should stop pretending to be Levi. Making a fake arm like that.”
“Fake?”
The man raised his left hand demonstratively. The loose sleeve slipped down, revealing the black hand that extended up to his elbow.
“Aren’t you the one who knows this black hand best, second only to Ion Verdit?”
“…”
Though he wanted to shout that it was just a well-made fake, Hest had no choice but to know the “black hand” well, just as the man said. He knew Levi well, who had tried so hard to keep that hand from touching him when he was young, and he had witnessed with his own eyes how that hand had taken the breath from many humans.
To Hest, who couldn’t answer and had confused eyes, the man continued.
“There is a way for Levi to live without needing to consume nourishment anymore.”
“What?!”
Hest exclaimed in shock.
The man pulled back his black hood, fully revealing his face. Not only his hair and black hand, but even his eyes and pupils resembled Levi’s, naturally raising suspicions about their relationship.
The same otherworldly aura that Levi had emanated from the man.
“Levi’s core is not whole. Every time the core is destroyed, fragments break off.”
A story that no one who hadn’t witnessed Levi’s death could know.
Hest could no longer think of the man as an impostor pretending to know Levi.
“Where fragments have disappeared, ‘death’ is needed to fill the space. Conversely, if you just fill in the original fragments instead of death, there is no longer any need for ‘death.'”
The man took one step closer to Hest, whose face showed confusion.
“More than anyone, you want Levi to be human-like, unrelated to death. I can make Levi ‘human’ as you wish.”
“What… are you saying?”
“You just need to return all ‘four fragments’ that have broken off from Levi’s core.”
Hest couldn’t help but be astonished at the part about “four fragments.”
The total number of times Levi had died due to his core being destroyed, including the time before Hest was born, was four.
If he hadn’t overheard the secret conversation between his now-deceased father and former Princess Claudia when he was just five years old, even Hest wouldn’t have known.
Hest had been hiding an important fact from Ion all this time.
After Levi died, in order to regenerate him, the broken core fragments were collected and placed in a pond in the Black Forest. After about a full day, they would form a round shape.
As if each fragment possessed its own will, they would huddle together to fill the gaps, and the black core would leave just one fragment behind, which wouldn’t fuse with the main body even if left in the pond.
Four core fragments had broken off that way.
Hest might not have known about the previous fragments, but he had gone to the Black Forest to personally preserve at least the fourth fragment. He thought that this time, he would be the one to cherish Levi’s fragment, just as former Princess Claudia had done.
Not telling the young Ion about the fragment at that time was a kind of jealousy.
He couldn’t help but know how much affection Levi had for that small boy—Levi who had not only entrusted the future Ion to him but also sacrificed his life to protect him.
And also because Ion was just a child then, with an uncertain future ahead.
But no matter how much he searched the pond in the Black Forest, all he could find was dead soil and Levi’s core with the small fragment missing.
He had no choice but to assume that no fragment had broken off this time, but the man in front of him made an astonishing statement as if he knew everything about it.
“I have the fourth fragment that you couldn’t find no matter how much you searched in the black pond.”
He spoke as if he had been watching Hest searching the pond the entire time.
“And I also know exactly where all the other fragments are.”
“…”
Hest felt his words fail him, beyond surprise.
Then, the very primitive question he had first asked upon meeting the man came out first.
“Who are you, really?”
The man extended his hand toward Hest. In his palm lay a black fragment that Hest couldn’t possibly mistake.
“Raziel.”
It was a name he had heard many times before somewhere.
The moment he realized that the name was the same as that of the young emperor of the Caron Empire, an astonishing statement flowed from the man’s lips.
“Levi’s ‘last brother,’ and the one who wishes more than anyone for him to become ‘human.'”
